We look ahead to Sunday’s EFL Cup final at Wembley Stadium with our Arsenal vs Manchester City prediction and preview. Can Mikel Arteta get the better of Pep Guardiola?
Arsenal vs Man City: The Key Stats
Premier League leaders Arsenal are the favourites to win the EFL Cup, given a 51.9% chance to win inside 90 minutes by the Opta supecomputer. Arsenal are unbeaten in their last six meetings with Manchester City in all competitions. Only Liverpool (10) have won the EFL Cup on more occasions than Man City (nine).It’s not an overexaggeration to suggest the hopes for Manchester City’s season rest on the next month.
After crashing out of the UEFA Champions League in the week with a 2-1 loss to Real Madrid sealing a 5-1 aggregate defeat, City take on Arsenal in the EFL Cup final on Sunday.
This showdown at Wembley between Pep Guardiola and his former assistant Mikel Arteta sees second take on first in the Premier League, but with City dropping points in their last two top-flight outings, the Gunners hold a nine-point advantage.
The only team to win a Premier League title having ended the night 9+ points behind the team in first after 30 or more games are City themselves in 2013-14 (nine points behind top on 20 April after 33 games).
And on the other side of the international break, City then take on Liverpool in the FA Cup quarter-finals before facing Chelsea and Arsenal in the league.
Suffice to say, it’s a big old month. Last season was the first campaign at City in which Guardiola had failed to lead them to a major trophy. If the next four games don’t go well, then it could mean he goes back-to-back campaigns without a major honour for the first time in his career.
It’s also a mighty month for Arsenal and Arteta. It all starts on Sunday, as the apprentice looks to get one over his former master.
Arteta has won just one trophy at Arsenal, with the Gunners beating Chelsea 2-1 behind closed doors in the 2020 FA Cup final. Since then, Guardiola has led City to four league titles, one FA Cup, one EFL Cup and a Champions League trophy.
But after years of being the nearly-men, it does seem like this could be Arsenal’s time. If they are to go on and win their first Premier League title since 2004, and possibly even more trophies, then getting that first trophy in the cabinet is a vital step.
Arsenal are looking to win the EFL Cup for the third time, after 1987 and 1993. However, the Gunners have lost more League Cup finals than any other side (six), most recently in 2018 against Guardiola’s Man City.
City have won eight of their nine League Cup finals, with only Liverpool winning the competition more often (10). They have won each of their last seven League Cup finals, since a loss to Wolves in 1974.
However, there have been chinks in their armour in recent showpiece games. They’ve lost their last two major finals, both in the FA Cup in 2024 (vs Manchester United) and 2025 (vs Crystal Palace). They have never previously lost three consecutive major final appearances.
Arsenal, meanwhile, ground out a second-leg semi-final win over Chelsea (triumphing 4-2 on aggregate after a 1-0 win on the night) to reach the final. Once Arteta has reached Wembley, he’s always converted. The Spaniard has never lost there with Arsenal as either a player (W3 D1) or a manager (W2 D2), going on to win on penalties after all three of those draws.
One bright mark for City following their loss to Madrid was Erling Haaland snapping his scoreless streak.
Haaland has scored in each of his last three games against Arsenal in all competitions. However, he has never scored in six appearances at Wembley so far in his City career.
Rayan Cherki is likely to be among the City attackers aiming to supply Haaland with chances. The Frenchman has been involved in four goals in his four EFL Cup appearances (three goals, one assist), averaging a goal involvement once every 47 minutes in the competition.
On the other side, Gabriel Jesus is unlikely to start, but will be hoping he at least comes on to feature and have a say against his former club.
Jesus played in City’s 3-0 win over Arsenal in the 2018 final. If he plays for Arsenal in this game, he would be the first player to have played for both sides in meeting between two clubs in EFL Cup finals.
Eberechi Eze, who netted a stunner in Arsenal’s Champions League win over Bayer Leverkusen in midweek, scored Palace’s winner against Manchester City in the 2025 FA Cup final.
He could become the third player to score against an opponent in both an EFL Cup and an FA Cup final after Roberto Di Matteo (vs Middlesbrough) and Didier Drogba (vs Liverpool).
Arsenal vs Man City Head-to-Head
Arteta has won only three of his 16 meetings with Guardiola, who has won all four of his EFL Cup finals in charge, doing so in four consecutive seasons between 2017-18 and 2020-21. No manager has ever won the trophy five times.
Arsenal are unbeaten in their last six meetings with City in all competitions (W2 D4), having lost 15 of their previous 16 against them (W1).
But City have won their last four League Cup meetings with Arsenal by an aggregate score of 11-1. Their last defeat to the Gunners came in the third round in 2004-05 (1-2).
Arsenal have lost just one of their five meetings with City at Wembley (W3 D1), though that was in the 2018 League Cup final (0-3).
Only two teams, meanwhile, have beaten the Gunners in two major cup finals before – Newcastle United (1932 FA Cup, 1952 FA Cup) and Leeds United (1968 League Cup, 1972 FA Cup).
Arsenal vs Man City Prediction
The Opta supercomputer is backing Arsenal to come out on top, with the Gunners winning 51.9% of pre-match simulations. Man City, meanwhile, won the match in 24.8% of the model’s 10,000 sims. The draw, which would send the game to extra-time and potentially penalties, happened in 23.3% of scenarios.
Opta Power Rankings
The Opta Power Rankings are a global team ranking system. They assign an ability score to over 15,000 domestic football teams. This score is on a scale between zero and 100, where zero is the worst-ranked team in the world and 100 is the best team in the world.
Ahead of kick-off on Sunday at Wembley, here is the Opta Power Ranking for each side.
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